Navy SEALs legacy still present with annual LI Memorial Day weekend challenge that keeps growing

It’s been over two decades since Navy SEAL Lieutenant Michael P.Murphy was killed in action, but the world will always know — and feel — his mighty strength.Fitness enthusiasts worldwide put themselves through a small sliver of the Patchogue-born hero’s grit each Memorial Day weekend through a debilitating workout Murphy crafted during basic underwater demolition/SEAL training (BUD/s).“I think Murph is somewhere up there in Frogman heaven, smiling down at all these people who honor fallen service members through sweat and sacrifice,” former SEAL Kaj Larsen, a friend of Murphy’s from BUD/s, told The Post.“I think nothing would have made him happier than to know that was part of his legacy.”That legacy is a one-mile run, 100 pull-up, 200 push-up, 300 air squat circuit, followed by a second one-mile run, that the two warriors concocted in the early 2000s to best prepare them for the hardest days of the hardest military training around.The origin was that Larsen and Murphy — he later added a 20-pound vest while deployed in Afghanistan — would run to and from their barracks to the beachfront pull-up bars about a mile away on base in Coronado, Calif.“We just kind of came up with it on the fly,” said Larsen, who added that Ukrainian troops even do the workout, which was posthumously named for Murphy, amid their war against Russia. Former SEAL Chris Wyllie is the executive director of the Lt.

Michael P.Murphy Museum in West Sayville and is preparing to host its annual “Murph” challenge Saturday, drawing a growing number of participants for the 7:30 a.m.

sharp opening ceremony at 50 West Avenue.“We had 366 sign up and are expecting even more.Last year we had 280,” added Wyllie, who has done the challenge around 100 times.“There are quite a few people who usually show up and get humbled a little bit.” The 29-year-old Murphy, a former lifeguard nicknamed “The Protector” at Lake Ronkonkoma, was gunned down by the Taliban in 2005 d...